'Auku'u, the Black-crowned Night Heron in Hilo

What happens when you take a flash picture of a bird standing on black basalt surrounded by black water at night? This. It's one of the native birds of Hawai'i, a Black-crowned Night-Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax hoactli). The bird is pretty much the same as the night herons found across the Americas, but it does stand out on the Hawaiian Islands as one of the few native species that can be sighted in the urban areas of the state. They are doing okay as a species, but there are only a few hundred of them, so their future is not assured.